Microsoft swats away FBI request for Office 365 subscriber data
Microsoft has successfully challenged a secret letter from the Federal Bureau of Investigation ordering it to turn over data from one of its Office 365 customers, court documents made public on Thursday have revealed.
The documents, which remained secret until they were unsealed by the US District Court in Seattle on Wednesday, show that the FBI had sent Microsoft a National Security Letter (NSL) last year requesting “several categories of information” about a single, unnamed enterprise customer.
One of the more notorious provisions of NSLs is that they come equipped with a “gag order”. Companies that receive them aren’t allowed to discuss their contents with the customers they target – in fact, they aren’t even allowed to reveal that the letters exist at all.
That didn’t sit well with Redmond, according to a Thursdayblog post by Microsoft chief counsel Brad Smith.
“Last December I announced that Microsoft was committed to notifying business and government customers if we receive legal orders related to their data,” Smith wrote. “Where a gag order attempts to prohibit us from doing this, we will challenge it in court.”
In the case of this particular customer, the software giant went for broke. The unsealed court papers [PDF] reveal that Microsoft challenged the validity of the gag order on multiple grounds, including that it was unconstitutional.
The clause violated First Amendment protections on free speech, the filing claims, because it attempted to restrain speech without judicial review. The NSL statutes don’t even require the government to bear the burden of proof once in court. What’s more, Microsoft’s filing alleges, the gag order was too broad would have lasted “an impermissible length of time” – i.e., forever.
“Microsoft Has Your Back If You Are Important Enough” Now that’s the truth! I would amend the sentence this way….”Microsoft Has Your Back If You Are Important Enough – TO THEM” They may not be successful in court, but they can always say they “fought” for their Office 365 cloud customers. I don’t believe for one-minute they care about the customer’s privacy, but only do whatever they have to, to protect that source of income. Personally, I’ll stick with storage on my own computer, at least until our Constitutional rights are reinstated. Hopefully, someday they will be.